I think the linked article is referring to the airline, Scandinavian Airlines System, not the British elite military unit. (Why would the author confuse the two? Really not hard to figure out from the context.)

"SAS's chief navigator at its Copenhagen base, Mr. Jorgen Jensen, had a ten-year-old son who was an archaeology enthusiast and read Skalk. The boy told the father about the sdlarstein, and the father instantly recognized that the sun-stonc must have been identical in function with the Kollsman Sky Compass which SAS navigators used regularly when flying in high latitudes..."

I think the linked article is referring to the airline, Scandinavian Airlines System, not the British elite military unit. (Why would the author confuse the two? Really not hard to figure out from the context.)

"SAS's chief navigator at its Copenhagen base, Mr. Jorgen Jensen, had a ten-year-old son who was an archaeology enthusiast and read Skalk. The boy told the father about the sdlarstein, and the father instantly recognized that the sun-stonc must have been identical in function with the Kollsman Sky Compass which SAS navigators used regularly when flying in high latitudes..."

It's acknowledged in the article that the use of polarizing crystals has been known for years to allow one to see where the sun is. The work described here specifically uses the accuracy of the measurement to numerically simulate how well it could be used as a navigational aid. And if that's been done before, then by all means please link to that earlier work.

I’ve not heard that Newfoundland would have been found by sailing from Norway to Greenland and missing. Seems easier to find it and establish a settlement there by leaving from Greenland, and exploring around. Sagas and archaeological evidence both suggest that’s what they did.

EDIT: nope, sagas say they got blown off course is how they found Vinland. Oops.

I’ve not heard that Newfoundland would have been found by sailing from Norway to Greenland and missing. Seems easier to find it and establish a settlement there by leaving from Greenland, and exploring around.

It's just a possibility not claim. A crew with a navigator who botched his sightings might have done it, even though your scenario is more likely.

I’ve not heard that Newfoundland would have been found by sailing from Norway to Greenland and missing. Seems easier to find it and establish a settlement there by leaving from Greenland, and exploring around.

It's just a possibility not claim. A crew with a navigator who botched his sightings might have done it, even though your scenario is more likely.

Some of the accounts in the Grœnlendinga saga describe voyages in which sailors intending to go to Greenland ended up somewhere else.

This features prominently in the first episode or two of "Vikings" the TV show on the History Channel, back in 2013.

No need to ground its use in reality then. We know the History Channel doesn't embellish historical details for the same of ratings. I mean, their coverage of Ancient Aliens is top notch!

/snark

/apologies to the OP who I didn't really want to attack but History makes too juicy a target

Here is the thing - Viking is an actual fictional show (though loosely based on history and the sagas). So it is cool to find that they didn't make the thing up whole cloth and that the fictional show may be more historically accurate than some of their other speculative"non-fictitonal" programming.

/apologies to the OP who I didn't really want to attack but History makes too juicy a target

No worries at all...and you're absolutely correct. I only brought it up because I found it somewhat interesting...because that was the first time I'd ever heard of it (on the show). Getting scientific accuracy (even in simulation) is very cool. I didn't mean to detract from the work being done.

What stands out to me in that passage from the saga and would lead me to take the potential reality of sunstones seriously is that it treats the son's ability to find the sun through clouds unaided as the magic trick, and the sunstone as a mundane and reliable method of telling if he was right. Like it could have been treated as some sacred artifact or something, and then I'd say okay that sounds like embellishment. But instead you could swap guessing the location of the sun with guessing the weight of a bag of grain, and the sunstone for a balance, and the tone would still fit.

The use of casting doubt on something by using "so-called" is fairly recent, and one of propagandist origin, relying on a sneering, skeptical tone. But the original usage was to make "commonly called" easier to say, which denotes the common way one references something.

Maybe the archaeologists also accidentally discovered a small military unit made of scandinavian aircraft?

I know where the exit is...

Seriously: this whole thread just fairly screams "Annalee! Where are you now that we need you???"

I know, right? Badass archaeology is usually her Joker. Of course, she could be writing more great science fiction...so there's that too.

And that's a great thing about Ars: most of our writers have a specialty, but they're also free to write about anything else so long as their accurate...

..and collect clicks;)

Dr. Jay did the article on Mississippi Floods the other day. That's hydrology, usually Scott Johnson's beat, but a good article.

Kiona Smith did fine with this one, too. Brought me back to '67 when my ChemE Swedish uncle described the Ramskou article to my amateur-geochemist father, also of Swedish ancestry. They batted about the optics, and the chirality, and family lore, and concluded that yeah, it could'a worked.

Not to step on Kiona and Annalee's lines, but I'll speculate one possible reason they haven't found sunstones in archeological digs, is that most of these have been of boats sacrificed in ceremonial burials. I'll further speculate that large, mono-crystalline sunstones might be rare and hard to come by, to passed down from navigator to navigator, rather than buried with their king.

I’ve not heard that Newfoundland would have been found by sailing from Norway to Greenland and missing. Seems easier to find it and establish a settlement there by leaving from Greenland, and exploring around. Sagas and archaeological evidence both suggest that’s what they did.

Yeah, if you miss Greenland by going too far south you're not gonna end up anywhere near Newfoundland.

The use of casting doubt on something by using "so-called" is fairly recent, and one of propagandist origin, relying on a sneering, skeptical tone. But the original usage was to make "commonly called" easier to say, which denotes the common way one references something.

/pedantic

Sure, and "bigly" used to be a common term but now we mock the cheeto for using it.

Languages are dynamic. The semantics of "so-called" have shifted in common parlance. It shouldn't be a surprise that people would misunderstand what the author means if the author is not using the common meaning.

The use of casting doubt on something by using "so-called" is fairly recent, and one of propagandist origin, relying on a sneering, skeptical tone. But the original usage was to make "commonly called" easier to say, which denotes the common way one references something.

/pedantic

Sure, and "bigly" used to be a common term but now we mock the cheeto for using it.

Languages are dynamic. The semantics of "so-called" have shifted in common parlance. It shouldn't be a surprise that people would misunderstand what the author means if the author is not using the common meaning.

That is still an extremely common meaning. It's still the context of the author clearly suggesting that despite being "so-called" that they personally wouldn't call it (or in this case, the absence of any such implication) that which determines which is being used.

I guess it's an unfortunate coincidence that both SAS'es have something to do with 'air', and thus could reasonably be expected to have had navigators in the pre-GPS days. So for a non-European who isn't familiar with the airline, I suppose it's a forgivable mistake.

That said, I now fully expect to board my next SAS flight by rappelling off the control tower.

I’ve not heard that Newfoundland would have been found by sailing from Norway to Greenland and missing. Seems easier to find it and establish a settlement there by leaving from Greenland, and exploring around. Sagas and archaeological evidence both suggest that’s what they did.

Yeah, if you miss Greenland by going too far south you're not gonna end up anywhere near Newfoundland.

If you are going to the west coast of Greenland you would sail roughly southwest, so Newfoundland is plausible, though it is a long overshoot. Labrador is more likely a destination from Greenland, but we need to remember that longitude is very difficult to estimate, and if you really don't know where you are....

I’ve not heard that Newfoundland would have been found by sailing from Norway to Greenland and missing. Seems easier to find it and establish a settlement there by leaving from Greenland, and exploring around.

It's just a possibility not claim. A crew with a navigator who botched his sightings might have done it, even though your scenario is more likely.

Some of the accounts in the Grœnlendinga saga describe voyages in which sailors intending to go to Greenland ended up somewhere else.

OK, so both the Greenland saga and Erik's saga describe the discovery of Vinland via getting blown off course. Egg makes a great facial, my skin is going to be so soft.